Two Little Stars
by whatapotter
Summary: Fred and George used to be inseparable. Now Fred is dead, and George, devastated by the loss of his brother, must continue living. An emotional fic about the horrific and permanent damage war can have on those that suffer when death leaves them behind.


**Two Little Stars**

He was broken now.

_"What would we want to be prefects for? It'd take all the fun out of life!"_

He would never be complete again. Death had reached deep inside of him, plundered the farthest depths of his soul to a place he had only ever allowed one other person to visit, and stolen something from him. Death had clawed their way into his body, had forced its way through his defences. He had struggled, frantically pounding and punching at the intruder. It had been futile. Death had won. He was left ripped, shredded and raw; a gaping wound left ragged and tattered within his core. And the wound was bleeding; a crimson stream of tears running deep within him, their glistening trails quickstepping through his soul in a furious dance.

And it _hurt_. It hurt like nothing he had ever experienced before. It was a constant grinding, grieving pain that wouldn't leave him. The pain latched its greedy tendrils around his heart, its spiked nails anchoring it deep into his flesh. There it stayed, wrapped so securely, so constrictingly, that no one would ever be able to pass through its coils again. No one would be able to fight their way in; pain would, forevermore, remain his only companion.

Morbidly, he found this comforting – he had lost so much of himself, if he lost the pain there may not be anything left. He would be nothing; a husk, a shell, sitting prettily amongst the sand at the beach waiting for a child's hand to reach out and grab him. Tiny fingers would press their way inside, but there would be nothing there; nothing left for the searching fingers to touch. Nothing.

He was broken now.

_"And there'll be little flags on the bonnets, with HB on them-"  
"– For Humongous Bighead"_

Even after losing an ear he had been whole, he had been complete. Now he was one half of a jigsaw puzzle which could never fit together again – his missing pieces had been lost and no-one and nothing would ever be able to finish him now. He would lay in his box, unfinished, incomplete. Soon they would all forget about him, they would move on to other jigsaws; people they could understand, their pieces fitting together in easy recognisability. He would remain here throughout the years, as the dust sighed and settled around him, until one day, when his corners became craggy, crinkled and travel-worn, he would sigh and let go.

Maybe then, when time had finished her weary dance with him, would he find that stolen jigsaw piece – the one that fitted him so utterly that breathing became second-nature again, instead of this constant uphill struggle it remained at the moment. They would slot together; two pieces of a puzzle so complicated that no one but themselves would ever be able to unravel it, and finally, finally, he would rest.

He was broken now.

_"So he hauled us off to his office and started threatening us with the usual-"  
"– detention-"  
"– disembowelment-"_

He had never been afraid of Death. It was something that came to everyone, man, woman or child. It was the equalizer, the last of life's roads that everyone must walk. No matter if you were rich or poor, foolish or wise, loved by many or only a few, you would travel down that last path. Death humbled a person; it extinguished rivalries, cancelled debts and made everyone equal. And it was inevitable. Fighting it was pointless – like trying to swim upstream while a tsunami swept downstream.

No, he had never been fearful of Death. He had only ever been afraid of being left behind by Death. He had been scared of being left alone in this cold world, a shadow of his former self, left to wander the roads of the living, separated forever from the one path he was forbidden to take. He had been right to fear it.

Here, left alone, he would dwindle and wither, while the Season's danced a slow foxtrot around him in ever decreasing circles. He would watch summer become autumn, observe winter transform into spring. And throughout every renovation he would watch the slow pirouetting of leaves down onto that path, watch them sigh and settle onto the cold, unrelenting earth. He would hear the deep indrawn breath of the wind, before, with a gusty bellow, it scattered those diminutive ballerinas into yet another dance; twisting them and twirling them through the air in a rhythmical salsa. He would sit here, caught in life's lonely desolation, watching that forbidden track. He would gaze upon that one lonely sunbeam that still managed to fight her way through the deep foliage, illuminating the trail that to him was still barred. He would wait, impatiently, staring as that one ray stuttered, choked and died, the shrubbery becoming too dense to even allow passage to its anorexic beams. Then finally, when he had watched the cycles revolve time after time after time, when his hands were cragged, his knees knotted and his eyes found it hard to identify those gracefully tumbling leaves, then, finally, would that gate open for him too.

He was broken now.

_"Make way for the heir of Slytherin, seriously evil wizard coming through …"_

Alone. He had never been alone. As far back as he could remember there had always been two of him. It had never been an 'I' or a 'me', but always an 'us' and a 'we'. They had been the same person inhabiting two separate bodies; the same mind, same thoughts, the same hopes, same dreams. They had been the opposite of Siamese twins; one person, trapped forever in different bodies. Physically separated by flesh and blood and bone, but in reality they had been one. Together.

He was so lonely now. He stood, idly, in the middle of a field, surrounded by only death and desolation. The wind chaffed him, cutting, biting and clawing against his skin. He staggered, buffeted from either side by the ruthless current. There was no-one standing beside him to break the charge of the wind like there had been before. There was no sentry standing safeguard, to guide him when the storm raged and blinding him with its bluster. There was no friend to lead him home when the cold of the tempest chilled his bones to frost and his blood to ice. There was no brother to whisper to him that he would never be lost again. There was no one, now. He was alone.

He was broken now.

_"But we're not stupid - we know we're called Gred and Forge."_

He was only called George now. There was no confusion, no indecision, and no embarrassment from other people. They _knew_, without thought or doubt, just who he was. And every time they looked at him and said his name, he felt them bite out a little more of his heart – for there was only one of him now. He didn't want to see the looks they all gave him, worried he may collapse at any second. They were right; he had lost half of himself, how could he be expected to walk proudly now. They were right, but he didn't want to see it. He didn't need to see yet more reminders of what was gone - of who should be here, and who had been stolen from him. There were too many things in this agonizing existence that mutated into the one person he wanted to see beyond all else.

Under the cover of darkness, the shadows in the corners of his room would transform, he'd think that finally his brother had returned to him, had made that long, tormented journey back to his side. He would scramble, frantically, from his bed, falling and clawing at the sheets in his desperation to escape them. But when he reached the darkness, he'd find only a worn and patched up dressing gown, hanging innocently from its hook. He'd collapse to the cruel floor, the gown wrapped around his frenetic hands, feeling the pain pierce him again, as fresh and as bloody and as excruciating as it had been in that first instance, when he'd originally glimpsed the body. He would bend double, body wracked with the images, the scents and the screams of that day. His forehead would scrape the harsh wood of his bedroom floor, and his body would succumb to the pain; twitching and shivering and gasping in denial.

He would not cry, however. The tears used to come from that special place inside of him, before it was stolen. The tears had dried up now, evaporated under the fierce heat of his pain. The tears recognised him as broken; a worthless endeavour on their part to stay. They had moved on, to someone fixable, someone sustainable… someone whose pain was not so permanent.

He was broken now.

_"Well, now-"  
"– what with Dumbledore gone-"  
"– we reckon a bit of mayhem-"  
"– is exactly what our new Head deserves"_

Some days, when he was feeling slightly more energetic than usual, he wanted to scream. The need was never released vocally – nothing ever was now. He wasn't even sure that the right connections existed within him nowadays, to attach his mind to the rest of him. Yet, the need, the want, still reigned within him; the desire to scream with the injustice lurking around every fetid, rotting corner of life's streets. The plain _wrongness_ which haunted the dark, howling pockets of his mind. The hypocrisy, the duplicity and insincerity spouting from the mouths of all he saw around him. They had told him that magic could do the impossible. They had told him that magic was incredible, that he was blessed, and that he should be thankful for the gift bestowed upon him. They had lied.

He wished now that he had never known of magic, never touched such a deceitful substance. For what was the point? You could produce flame, make objects fly, cause a man to sleep forever – all of it useless! Pointless, when the one thing, the one person, who was so innately a part of him anyway that they should never have been separated, was beyond even the reach of magic. He had thought magic could conquer anything. Now, he knew the truth. It conquered nothing; but merely gave false platitudes and sweet illusions. When he had really and truly needed it, magic deserted him.

He was broken now.

_"If the Hogwarts Express crashed tomorrow, and George and I died, how would you feel knowing that the last thing we ever heard from you was an unfounded accusation?"_

From the womb onwards they had been one unit; flying their first brooms together, starting school together, gaining, and serving, detentions together. George couldn't understand how, now, to act solely on his own. How to continue in a business they had built together. How to wear the clothes they had prided themselves as being identical in, or how to act with the family who had only ever known his as one of a pair.

He had no one now to create with – they had bounced off each other, two minds working in unison, filling in the gaps for the other before the first had even realised there had been a problem. No one to finish his sentences, and no sentences to finish for someone else; no one who knew him so intimately that his mind could be read by the other before his own intentions had even revealed themselves to him. No one to tease his siblings with. No one to jointly enrage and exasperate his mother with. No one to make mischief with, and laugh with when the mischief landed them in trouble. There was no one.

He was one half of a set that was never meant to be separated; a cup without a saucer, a key without a lock. He was a shoe without the laces there to hold him together, a table without the legs standing strong to hold him upright, and a wand without its core to feed it magic. Broken things; useless, redundant, damaged.

He was broken now.

_"We'll send you a Hogwarts toilet seat!"_

He used to think they could take on the world; that they could fight the tyranny, the oppression, the cruelty and the pessimism in the world with one weapon – laughter. They were fools. Now he felt as if there was no laughter left inside of him. It had been sucked out, eaten away by the monster who had stolen his twin. He didn't want it to return. It seemed iniquitous, sinful, _wrong_, that there should still be laughter in the world when he was gone.

Stupid, they had been. Laughter can't win against an evil that phenomenal. George had watched as the laughter had been squashed from the world, plunging him into darkness with the harshness of a single light bulb in a windowless room exploding. And the darkness was all-encompassing; it enveloped him, smothered him, suffocating him with its putrid stench. Yet, he did not wish to be free. The darkness had won – it could have him for all he cared. There was no fight left in him anymore.

He was broken now.

_  
'Give her hell from us, Peeves.'_

Now, he was the one in hell. It was a hell that lived and resided within him. The pain faded from the searing agony it had been, that scorching, scream-inducing suffering while white hot coals had burned and blistered from within him, from within that ripped wound inside. Over the years it had corroded him, eating away until gradually, its appetite seemed satisfied. Now, it singed and seared him more gently, but constantly, persistently, incessantly. He would not be without it now. Losing the pain might be like losing him, all over again. He would wait, confined behind the flames of his own private hell, until it was time.

Nowadays, he walked steps through the same house he had lived in his whole life, yet it was just a house to him now, never would it be home again, not with him gone. He saw people, family, that he knew at sometime and someplace he had loved, yet he could not resurrect that feeling now – it had been devoured, all of it, by the flames. He saw no joy, no hope and no happiness in the world. If he felt at all, he felt pain, misery, anguish and hurt. If he felt at all. Mostly, he just felt empty.

He watched the world gradually change, pick it self up, dust itself off, and carry on with life. His wearied eyes took some small comfort in watching other people heal; he knew the scar within him lay too deep to ever mend. He could not be repaired; he wouldn't want to be. Nobody could replace him. Ever.

He had accepted it now. That he was gone – he had stopped watching the shadows, stopped expecting him to turn up at his elbow, grinning with news about their latest business endeavour. No, this was a permanent gone. It was a gone that struck a hammer blow against his heart with every letter. An irrevocable, irretrievable, irreversible gone. He was alone. His brother, Fred, was dead.

He was broken now.


End file.
